Advertisement
mr poundo
Im 75 and ive still got my own teeth Continuing our adventures in Zimbabwe we headed out to a couple of National Parks for a few days which we will remember most for the two guides that we met there. At the first park, Matapos, the strangest animal there was definitely our guide Ian. His legs were so long and his shorts so short that you felt he could blend in with a herd of giraffe with ease. Ian had grown up in the park and was passionate about it and it's rock formations, kopjes, that were over 300 million years old. Every five minutes Ian would stop the jeep to point out an eagle or show us how a various plant could be used for medicine, food, soap or narcotics etc.
Ian took us to a cave to show us some ancient cave paintings, some of which are thought to be 40,000 years old. These were produced by San bushmen who they think could well be our earliest ancestors. Ian is one of a group of only four people in the world who has contact with the last remaining bushmen in Zimbabwe and refuses to tell anyone where they are. The bushmen are physically different from us, so
much so that they have huge bottoms to store fat each time they kill and eat an animal. They are able to eat up to 10kg of meat in one go which obviously then lasts them for many days. Amongst the fantastic animal paintings in the caves, there were some paintings of some 'portals'. The San people claim to have used a form of telepathy allowing them to see different locations without physically travelling there.
Next we headed to a local village (not bushmen) where Ian had spent a lot of time as a kid growing up. He was good friends with the village chief and we were invited into his house. The chief was called Mr Poundo, so named as he was born in the year that the first British one pound note was introduced. This they think must make him about 75 years old.
To finish a great day Ian took us on a foot approach to a herd of rhino. It was heart in the mouth time as we stood just a few metres from them and they suddenly started to get agitated.
At the next National Park, Hwange, we were looked after by
another amazing guide called Andy. He was a white Zimbabwean whose love of the bush was so extreme that he once lived in it for 2 years. When he came out he found that his girlfriend had give up on him and married someone else. What's suprising is that he found that suprising. Andy has a bit of a maverick mad streak in him which would have been very scary where it not for the large rifle which he carried over his shoulder on our walks.
We went for a late afternoon game walk near our campsite and Andy showed us how to identify animal tracks, work out how old they are and follow them. After two hours of hard walking Andy found some fresh elephant dung on the path and picked up a large steaming piece. In true Steve Irwin style he stuck his finger into the middle of the poo and then into his mouth before saying 'they are off to find water'. We trotted off to try and beat them to the nearest watering hole but ended up cutting across them too sharply and an elephant suddenly burst through the trees towards us. Startled, the elephant
continued straight towards Kim and I. Andy raised his rifle and shouted at the elephant, who about 4 metres from us suddenly thought better of it and fled into the jungle.
The next day was filled with other elephant adventures. A highlight was when we came across a few lions whilst driving in our open sided jeep. The lions were not very happy to see us at all and a lioness started to growl and flick her tail at us. We all got a bit over excited and started to make some noise in the jeep, which made matters far worse as she then mocked charged us. Andy had a pistol pointed towards her in lightening quick speed and she stopped a few metres from the jeep and then sulked off.
Driving back to camp that night whilst dark, Andy suddenly veered off the road and turned off the engine coming to rest next to a huge bull elephant. ' Good Evening Mr Elephant' he said. The elephant looked as it was about to step right into the jeep just as Andy realised that we didn't have any lights on and the elephant couldn't see us. With the
lights on the Elephant looked at us for while and then moved on.
A bit further down the road whilst we were shining a torch into the trees looking for leopards Andy veered off the road again and careered between two big trees. He began shining the light up into the trees and started screaming at the top of his voice. There was a huge commotion and one by one a group of petrified baboons started running down the tree trucks and into the jungle. 'I hate baboons' he said with a wry smile on his face.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.112s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 61; dbt: 0.0745s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb